February 07, 2012

Why doesn't TU run Douthat's column? (updated)

The Albany Times Union's opinion department subscribes to The New York Times news service, regularly running its syndicated columnists such as Maureen Dowd and David Brooks. But the TU does not run the Times' Ross Douthat, so you won't read in its pages his Sunday column about "the media's abortion blinders".

Discussing a recent controversy, Douthat writes: "From the nightly news shows to print and online media, the coverage’s tone alternated between wonder and outrage — wonder that anyone could possibly find Planned Parenthood even remotely controversial and outrage that the Komen foundation had 'politicized' the cause of women’s health. ... Conservative complaints about media bias are sometimes overdrawn. But on the abortion issue, the press’s prejudices are often absolute, its biases blatant and its blinders impenetrable."

This seems to me obviously true locally, and a particular problem in the TU editorial department, which strives mightily to obfuscate and deny the possibility of regarding abortion as a legitimately controversial issue. The Times itself has long had similar policies and coverage. For many years, like the TU now, it carried no regular columnist with pro-life opinions. But to the Times' credit, it did hire the pro-life Douthat -- whose views are apparently too dangerous to be read in Albany.

Update: This is not, to be clear, a strictly partisan problem. While pro-life Republicans are obviously beyond the pale, even the Obama administration came in for ferocious criticism in December 2011 when it decided to restrict over-the-counter sales of the morning-after pill, and most news reports did not mention legitimate concerns about the pill sometimes acting as an abortifacient. No surprise that today's Catholic-bashing TU column on related issues manages to avoid all mention of abortion.

Comments

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Instead of (or if you insist, in addition to) just whining about the Times-Union’s alleged bias against anti-abortion folks, why don’t you use this blog to post an anti-abortion point of view that you feel the TU is not presenting?

Matt, my position is complicated. Some forms of birth control, e.g. "emergency contraception," sometimes do not work to prevent conception, but, by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg, are not really contraception at all but early abortifacients, so I'm definitely against them. Regarding the church's objections to non-abortifacient birth control, e.g. condoms, it has its reasons (e.g. encouraging promiscuity), and is entitled to its position, but is not asking to have them banned as a matter of public policy. No one, including me, is advocating that.

I guess, Brian, I don't think there's a whole lot new to say. I think there are respectable pro-choice arguments of the lesser-evil variety, i.e. that restricting abortion or embryonic stem-cell research would infringe on women's rights or medical research. But it seems to be inarguable that abortion and embryonic stem-cell research kill young human beings, which is at the least morally problematic. I think people who deny that are not being morally serious.

Maybe it’s because discussion of issues like abortion, gay rights, etc. are difficult to do outside the context of morality and therefore one’s position is necessarily an expression that one believes one’s morality is the right one.

I think it’s highly questionable for the Church to claim that birth control encourages promiscuity. I think it would be more accurate to say that birth control helps manage promiscuity.

Additionally, Birth control is often used within monogamous married couples.

Furthermore, its purpose is to prevent unwanted pregnancies. If a woman doesn’t want to get pregnant, it’s probably better off for all involved, herself, the potential future child and society as a whole, that she not do so. Preventing unwanted pregnancies is an important way to head off a wide variety of social ills. And since the Church opposes the prevention of unwanted pregnancies via abortion, then birth control seems the most sensible alternative.

The Catholic Church sees abortion as murder. Ok, I get. Disagree w/ it but whatever. Logically speaking, wouldn't they not be in favor of contraception. Which is the worse sin, promiscuity or murder?

It wasn't that long ago where religious institutions managed things like brothels (like they did up until the French Rev) & saloons (like in the Old West, citing its management being the lesser of two evils. Offering people a socialized pressure release valve lest it completely unmanageable (like Prohibition).

Maybe I should put less stress on morality and more on science, which (it seems to me) definitively establishes conception as the beginning of human life. And the TU most definitely does print the same old, same old on this issue, but almost all on one side of the question. Columnists of any opionion vary widely in quality, and Douthat is one of the best on my side of these issues.

Bob: If the concern is with de facto abortifacents, why doesn’t the Church ok certain forms of birth control that do not fit that description (condoms, for example)?

Matt: a little background on your initial question... in the 60s, a Papal commission (eventually 72 members, according to the Wikipedia piece, for what it’s worth) was named by Pope John XXIII to study whether the Church should authorize the use of birth control. Over 90% of the commission agreed that there was no Biblical reason that contraception should not be permitted. His successor Paul VI rejected the commission’s finding, under the pretext that the decision was not unanimous (as though a group of 72 people will ever come to unanimity on anything).

Essentially what happened is that John XXIII’s short papacy completely revolutionized the Church, dragging it from the Middle Ages into the (early) 20th century. Many Catholics thought it was way too much too fast so after he died, he was replaced by the more conservative Paul VI to calm the nerves of traditionalists. He put the brakes on the birth control change.

Matt, I disagree with your interpretation. Murder is a legal term, and there is usually widespread agreement about what it means. Many people object to various types of killing, such as capital punishment or a war they do not agree with. But in my opinion, in the absence of consensus or the legal definition, they should not accuse the executioner, soldier or abortionist of murder.
Brian, the church's position on birth control is complicated and unpopular, which does not necessarily make it wrong. The root is its very different view of sexuality to the popular culture's view. At any rate, it is entitled to its own doctrines.

"The perp murdered the victim" & "the perp killed the victim", they both mean the same EXACT same thing. Even executioners murder, the difference between them & the perp is that their murder is sanctioned by law.